The Implications of Selected School Reform Approaches for School Library Media Services

Gary N. Hartzell, Professor, Educational Administration & Supervision, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Printed with permission from the U.S. Department of Education. This manuscript was commissioned as part of a national study, Assessment of the Role of School and Public Libraries in Support of Educational Reform, Westat, Inc., 1998–2000.

This paper explores the implications of selected school reforms for library media services. Each reform is described and its individual implications for library media services identified. From these implications, general themes are noted and conclusions are drawn. Even though many of the reforms selected have stirred controversy, it is not within the scope of this paper to evaluate any of them. Some reference to quality or viability is necessary and inevitable in the course of discussion, but the objective here is only to identify the implications of selected approaches for school library media services where and if they are implemented.

Clusterings of Various Reform Ideas |  Cluster 1: Governance and Choice |  Cluster 2: Targeted Reform |  A Selection of Reforms Targeting Secondary School Students |  Coalition of Essential Schools Targeting High School Students |  Cluster 3: A Scattered Collection of Reforms Sharing the Goal of Improving Student Achievement  |  Conclusion |  Works Cited

Clusterings of Various Reform Ideas

The reform ideas discussed in this document divide into three rough clusters. Educational reforms are difficult to categorize because many contain elements that span and blur the lines between divisions. Clusters are loose groupings, and the separation between clusters is not sharp. Because the boundaries are not always clear, some readers may question the categorizing that follows, especially near the edges of each group. At the core, though, the central attributes and motivations of the ideas in each cluster are different enough to suggest different-even if overlapping-implications for school libraries and school library media specialists. The first cluster comprises reforms that fundamentally restructure school governance. The second contains a sample of reforms targeting how schools deal with specific groups of students. The third cluster is a scattered collection of reforms that share only the goal of improving student achievement.

Reform Proposals Not Considered Here

This paper focuses on reforms that speak to the governance, curriculum, organization, and instructional practices at the building level. There are many other reforms, both proposed and already in practice, that address broader and connected issues-among them teacher certification, administrator training, merit pay and career-ladder plans, national standards, and methods of financing education. These issues are not examined here, because they hold few immediate direct implications for school library media services. Doubtless, the topics should be included in plans to improve educational performance and to capitalize upon library and library media specialist potential, but they are not at this moment directly positioned to do so.

The Question of Technology

The infusion of technology into schooling is pervasive, and while it represents a critical component in reform implementation and delivery, it is not in itself a school reform program. Schools and programs may need to be "reformed" in order to capitalize on technology's educational potential or to ensure that students are prepared to deal with it as an integral part of their lives, but such needs define it as an educational tool and a twenty-first century challenge. From this perspective, technology is not a separate issue. Rather, it is a component of educational quality that must be considered within the context of reforming curriculum and instruction.

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Cluster 1: Governance and Choice

The reforms selected for this cluster imply new roles for school library media services as a result of reordering governance systems. Depending on the perspective taken, these types of reform perhaps hold the greatest promise or greatest threat of dismantling traditional approaches to public education. Even partial dismantling can result in potentially significant changes in school purpose, philosophy, and organization. Alterations in school goals, governance, or operation automatically stimulate changes in all areas of the organization, including the role and function of library media services. School-based management, school choice, and home schooling—three examples chosen from points on a continuum progressing from least to most radical—illustrate this point.

School-Based Management

Alternately called site-based management, shared governance, or intradistrict decentralization, school-based management is a governance reform that shifts some or all curriculum, staffing, and budget decisions to personnel located at the school building. Although it provides schools with measures of autonomy, it is far less radical than some other restructuring ideas, such as open choice and voucher plans. The salient characteristic in site-based management is the sharing of the decision-making process among constituents in the school. This typically involves a parent/community advisory council to work with the school staff (David 1989b). Through shifting and sharing of authority and responsibility, school-based management restructures roles and responsibilities not only in the building, but also in the central office (Elmore 1988). The purpose is to fundamentally change authority structures, not just reorganize administrative responsibilities (David 1989a).

There is no single model for successful school-based management. By definition, each school determines its own needs and unique approach to answering those needs. In addition to having merit in its own right, proponents contend that it is a requisite to success in smaller scale school reform movements because it is impossible to create conditions that foster innovation, improvement, and the professional growth of faculty without the flexibility school-based management affords (Goodlad 1984; Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy 1986).

The driving argument in school-based management is that more effective learning environments result when teachers, parents, community members, and students are meaningfully involved in organizational and instructional decision making (Myers and Stonehill 1993). Some research suggests a connection between the institution of school-level decision making and increased student achievement, but variations in the effectiveness of implementation moderate the relationship (Allen and Glickman 1992; Levin 1988; Levine and Lezotte 1990; Rauth 1990).

In operation, the site leadership's discretion in decision making often is not as broad as it appears on paper. Staffing takes up the largest part of any school's budget, and decision making in most areas is still constrained by state law, union contracts, federal regulations, board mandates, and district traditions (David 1989b). In the usual circumstance, the school receives a lump-sum budget for all expenditures. Authority to make changes in how budget, staffing, and curriculum decisions are made, and in other areas of school operation that will affect the culture and climate of the building, usually is obtained through some type of waiver process. Building-level personnel may have the authority to hire appropriate staff, but the ability to evaluate, remediate, transfer, or terminate varies dramatically with local conditions and agreements. While teachers are encouraged to develop curriculum and to create or select instructional materials, their decisions are often constrained by state- or district-mandated goals or curriculum.

Implications of School-Based Management for School Library Media

School Choice

School choice, a more radical change in school governance than site-based management, represents one of the most controversial proposals in educational reform. Instead of a school system governed by elected officials in which curriculum, instruction, and other elements of schooling are managed through a hierarchical structure, choice proposes determination of those elements by individual schools in response to consumer preferences. A decentralized system incorporating market values, and directly responsive to student and parent demands, challenges several standard practices in the American educational tradition—most prominently the idea that a school district can direct where a student is to go to school (Witte and Thorn 1996).

Choice programs break the monopoly of the public education establishment, make schools accountable through competition, and offer parents the opportunity to provide their children with a particular ethical or moral education if they so choose (Hill 1996). In their fullest incarnations, choice programs advocate allowing parents to send children to private schools at state expense, either through the issuance of vouchers or through tax credits for tuition costs. Advocates also contend that choice programs address equity issues. Affluent parents already have wide school choice because they can either afford to move to areas with schools showing higher levels of student achievement or they can send their children to private schools, but parents with fewer financial resources have neither option. The underlying argument is that the introduction of competition into school enrollment results in general school improvement. Because parents would choose only effective schools, all schools would be forced to improve their performance in order to maintain their enrollment, let alone increase it.

While none of the assertions of the qualities of choice programs have gone unchallenged (Driscol, 1995; Kemerer and King 1995), such arrangements have developed public support and legal foundations in several states (Chubb and Moe 1990; Hill 1996). At present, they exist in several forms. The most common, and probably least controversial, is the magnet school option, in which students are attracted to a school by the emphasis it gives a particular line of study and preparation. Magnet schools are not only centers for specialized study, but they are also vehicles for desegregation. Their success is evident in both academic and social terms, and their growth is continuing (Blank 1990).

Other varieties include open enrollment options, allowing students to choose any school in the district—Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis and St. Paul, and some parts of New York City have accepted the idea—and interdistrict plans, which allow students to attend schools in districts other than the one in which they live. Fourteen states, led by Minnesota, have accepted some version of interdistrict choice since the late 1980s, and twenty more have considered them (Education Week on the Web 2001). Interdistrict choice plans are more complicated because they raise a variety of questions, including equal opportunity concerns if parents are required to transport students themselves or pay any type of tuition costs, complications in the allocation and tracking of state or federal funds, and even activity and athletic eligibility concerns in secondary schools.

The most controversial choice arrangements include various forms of voucher or tax credit plans in order to expand parental choices beyond the public school realm and into the private. Private school choice, or the voucher plan, permits parents to use public funds to send their children to private schools. Under a voucher plan, parents enrolling their children in private schools would get a check from the state, applicable to private school tuition. To date, vouchers have been adopted only in Milwaukee, where low-income children are being allowed to attend certain nonreligious private schools at state expense. Cleveland has been examining a voucher arrangement in which the state would pay up to as much as $2,250 for each of about 2,000 low-income children who would be allowed to enroll in private and religious schools (Education Week on the Web 1996). Controversy surrounds voucher plans because of the potential threat they pose to the separation of church and state, and the questions they raise about equal participation opportunity for disadvantaged students.

Another form of choice that blurs district lines and bureaucratic structures—and carries representative implications for school library media services—is the charter school. Charter schools are public schools that operate under a charter or contract negotiated between the school's organizers and a local educational agency, most often a school board or the state board of education (Bierlein and Bateman 1996; Izu 1999; Nelson et al. 2000). Minnesota became the first state to authorize charter schools in 1991, and twenty-five states and the District of Columbia now have charter school laws on the books. Recent estimates set the number of charter schools at more than 200 nationwide, serving about 28,000 students (American Federation of Teachers 1996).

A school's charter outlines its educational plan, the outcomes it expects to achieve, and the measures by which its success will be assessed. Each school is conceptualized, organized, and operated by a group of teachers, parents, community members, or some combination thereof. The charter invests school personnel with the authority to hire and fire employees, award contracts for services, control its own finances, and plan its own program. Charter schools are regarded as public schools because they receive state funding, cannot charge tuition, and may not be selective in admissions. A charter school can remain open so long as it can attract students and does nothing that violates its charter.

Charter schools are usually given waivers from most state regulations and local school board policies, except those to which every organization is subject: safety, health, civil rights, fiscal accountability, etc. They are designed to allow more educational choices for teachers, parents, and students, but they must face two tests of accountability. First, they must be able to attract students, and second, they must be able to demonstrate results to the body with whom they negotiated their original contract (Bierlein and Bateman 1996; Nathan 1996; Nelson et al. 2000).

Implications of Choice Programs for School Library Media

Home Schooling

Home schooling is the ultimate challenge to the conventions of established educational practice in the United States. It draws criticism because it rejects the fundamental establishment position that education is most effectively carried out in the formal settings of cohesive organizations (Lines 1996). It is not as publicly controversial as choice, however, probably because it potentially affects far fewer children and, possibly, for many, rejection is easier to understand and tolerate than is change. One of the unique aspects of home schooling is that it draws its advocates from the far left and far right, while those holding more moderate philosophies argue over what should be the shape of the center.

Although estimates on the number of school-age children being taught at home vary between 350,000 and one million—or, roughly, slightly less than 1 to 2 % of the total K–12 school population—the numbers are open to question (Staying home from school 1996; Marshall and Valle 1996). No uniform definition exists among the states for identifying home schoolers, and some parents simply do not register their children with any educational governing body.

Legal nationwide, home schooling appears to be on the increase. Thirty-four states regulate it in some way, and twenty-nine require students to take standardized tests or submit to other outside evaluations, but there are no records of a parent's right to home school being denied because of a child's poor academic performance (Staying home from school 1996).

The most recent developments in home schooling have involved partnerships with public school districts. Alaska, California, Iowa, and Washington have developed opportunities for home-schooled students to take part in various school activities and to enroll in selected programs, many of which rely on distance education technology (discussed later in this paper under Cluster 3) (Lines 1996; Dahm 1996). Other states are being presented with legal challenges to the exclusion of home-schooled students from access to certain public school resources and facilities.

Implications of Home Schooling for School Library Media

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Cluster 2: Targeted Reforms

This cluster contains a sample of reforms that target how schools deal with specific groups of students. Involving complex process and policy adjustments, restructuring ideas like these defy standard definition and description because they are configured differently in each system in which they are attempted (Malen, Ogawa, and Kranz 1990). These targeted restructuring proposals break into three rough groups:

Each involves a reconfiguration of staff roles and responsibilities, changes in the development and delivery of curriculum and instruction, and—frequently—changes in authority and decision-making processes. These ideas affect entire systems because they cannot co-exist with the policies currently directing those systems. In that light, they suggest a potential for significant changes in library media services and in the work lives of school library media specialists.

Targeting Special Education Students through Inclusion

The most far-reaching and controversial reform proposal in special education right now is "inclusion." Commonly defined as the integration of children with disabilities into regular classrooms—in effect, the integration of regular and special education (Yell and Shriner 1996)—inclusion is widely and hotly discussed. The legal base behind inclusion is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which calls for educating special needs students in the "least restrictive environment." School systems are thus legally required to provide students with disabilities an education appropriate to their unique needs in an environment as close as possible to that of normally developing, age-appropriate peers (Fuchs and Fuchs 1995). There is research evidence that the segregation of uniquely challenged students into separate programs and classrooms may have negative effects on both their social and academic growth, and that such students can perform better in regular classrooms if conditions are right (Baker, Wang, and Walberg 1994/95; McLesky and Waldon 1995).

The critics and opponents of inclusion are many (Zigmond et al. 1995; The Inclusive School 1994/95). The most intense criticisms center around the diversion of instructional attention from regular students. While there is research that indicates that the inclusion of disabled youngsters does no harm to the progress of regular students (Staub and Peck 1994/95), the question of what constitutes the disability becomes paramount. Clearly, students with emotional and behavioral disabilities present the greatest challenge to other students, to teachers, and to the notion of inclusion itself (Cheney and Muscott 1996). Some argue that schools as currently structured simply are not equipped to successfully implement full inclusion as it is now envisioned by its proponents. They question the legal implications, for example, of mixing students who are known to be volatile, perhaps violent, with other students. Research has suggested that students with emotional and behavioral disorders do best in an environment in which there is a very low pupil/staff ratio and a body of trained, experienced, and collaborative personnel working in close physical proximity to each other. Most classroom teachers are physically isolated in individual rooms, critics argue, and those without special education backgrounds are not trained to deal with the unique problems of special education youngsters nor prepared to recognize many of their individual learning needs. Furthermore, there is as yet no universal agreement on what training regular education teachers should have to equip them for the challenges of the inclusion classroom. In any case, there certainly do not appear to be resources available to pay for very much training were agreement to be reached (Kauffman, Lloyd, and Riedel 1995).

Implications of Inclusion for School Library Media

A Selection of Programs Targeting At-Risk Students

Second to special education in targeted focus are programs and reform proposals concentrating on at-risk students at the elementary level. Like inclusion, if fully implemented, these programs alter the entire operating system of the school building. Supported under Title I of the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, participating schools with at least 50 % of their populations drawn from low-income families can qualify for schoolwide restructuring to expand the flexibility and quality of the programs they offer (What is a schoolwide program? 1996). Included in the discussion here are only the best known of the current innovations: Accelerated Schools, Developmental Schools, Success for All, the HOTS program, Reading Recovery, and the Degrees of Reading Power Comprehension Development program.

While some are more comprehensive than others, and there are significant differences in the implementation requirements and costs of each, they share two fundamental characteristics: (1) an emphasis on the student's ability to read, and (2) the goal of improving the odds that young at-risk students will be successful in their elementary school experiences and will be better equipped to find success—and, therefore, be more likely to remain in school—through the secondary level.

Accelerated School Model

Specifically designed by Henry Levin to assist at-risk elementary students from poverty backgrounds, the Accelerated School idea shapes the basics of school-based management into three fundamental principles. One, there must be a defined and unified purpose shared by all members of the school community. As guides for the school, these people must develop a vision specific to their school and draw up action plans for bringing it to reality (Levin 1987; Levin 1988; Levin and Hopfenberg, 1991; Hopfenberg, Levin, and Associates 1993). Two, to accomplish this goal, the school community must have the autonomy to make local decisions regarding the school's curriculum, instructional strategies and materials, personnel selection and assignment, and budgeting. In Accelerated Schools, these decisions are made collaboratively with the involvement of parents, students, administrators, teachers, and community members. Parents sign a contract outlining their responsibilities in their students' learning, and they are strongly encouraged to take an active part in the school's operation and governance. Finally, instruction should flow from the strengths of students, staff members, and parents.

Many economically disadvantaged students enter school with fewer skills than their middle-class counterparts. The situation is made worse when curriculum is made less rigorous and the pace of instruction is made slower in the schools that serve them. The advocates of the Accelerated School argue that the lack of a solid elementary school foundation puts these students at additional risk in secondary school settings. The major focus of the Accelerated School is to prevent student failure rather than to remediate it at a later time. The goal is to have students proficient by the sixth grade, so the odds of success in secondary school are enhanced.

The curricula in most Accelerated Schools are rooted in what Robert Reich (1991) termed "symbolic-analytic" work. Active learning is stressed, students are asked to apply what they learn to real-life situations, and problem solving is emphasized. There is a focus on reading and thinking skills (King 1994; Chenoweth 1992). Hopfenberg and Levin believe there are literally hundreds of schools adopting the Accelerated School model across the country (Hopfenberg, Levin, and Associates 1993; Levin and Hopfenberg 1991).

Developmental Schools

Another program designed for disadvantaged elementary students, James Comer's Developmental School approach, has now expanded to junior and senior high schools (Comer 1980; Comer 1987; Lofland 1995). Much like the Accelerated School, the Developmental School works from the belief that low-income children have underdeveloped skills and do not always know how to behave at school. Comer's concern was that in their ignorance of the social development patterns of children raised in poverty, teachers would misinterpret these behaviors and academic deficits as indications that the child was unmotivated, had very low ability, or both.

The Developmental School program consists of nine elements. The first three are mechanisms for developing school-based structures: (1) a governance structure shared by administrators, teachers, and parents; (2) a "mental health" team whose function is to see to the emotional, social, and other needs of the students who attend the school and to the "health" of the school's culture and climate; and (3) a training program for parents that helps them better understand their responsibilities to their children both at home and school.

The second three elements of the Developmental School are operational. The school governance team is responsible for (1) creating a plan with specific goals for student achievement and for the social climate of the school; (2) designing a professional development program to ensure that staff have the skills necessary for accomplishing the goals; and (3) conducting evaluations of student accomplishments and school climate. Climate is of extreme importance in Development Schools. Without an appropriate climate, students will not be motivated to learn (Chenoweth 1992).

The final three elements are guidelines for interaction. The first is that the principal and the governance team must work together; neither can dominate the other. Second, problems must be handled with a no-fault attitude; the goal is problem identification and resolution, not blame attachment. The third requires that all decisions in the school be consensus decisions.

Curriculula in Developmental Schools vary from school to school but generally emphasize reading and mathematics, concentrate on skills, spend more time on core academic subjects and less time on electives, and aim at contextualization of material (King 1994). One school, for example, decided to pursue a theme of citizenship, and parents became involved in helping their children read about, research, and debate the issues prominent in the local mayoral race (Baker et al. 1996).

Success for All

Developed by Robert Slavin at Johns Hopkins University, Success for All is a school-based prevention and intervention program to combat the development of learning problems among disadvantaged pre-K through grade five students (1996). It is designed to provide intensive instructional support and family involvement in the classroom. Success for All is based on four beliefs: (1) all children can learn; (2) early success is critical for later success in schools; (3) learning deficits can be prevented through improved curriculum and instruction, individual attention, and support to families; and (4) effective school reform programs must be both comprehensive and intensive (Ross and Smith 1995; Balkcom and Himmelfarb 1993).

The program's goals are to ensure that every child performs at or above grade level in reading by the end of the third grade, to reduce the number of students referred to special education and the number who are retained in grade for a year, and to address family needs in order to enable the family to support the child's education. To accomplish these goals, the program incorporates both phonics and whole language approaches to reading, emphasizes language development and learning-to-learn skills, and provides individual tutoring, varying grouping plans, and a family support team that works to increase parents' involvement with the school and children's activities and provides assistance when health or home problems interfere with learning. Each school has a facilitator who plans programs, trains teachers, assists teachers, helps work out schedules, and oversees periodic assessments. More than 300 schools have adopted the Success for All model.

HOTS

The Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) approach developed by Stanley Pogrow is a creative, technology-based, two-year program designed to improve standardized test scores for Title 1 and learning disabled students by increasing thinking abilities and improving self-confidence. Rather than focusing on basic skills, the program develops a sense of understanding in these students that produces "a transfer that enables the students to learn classroom content more effectively" (Pogrow 1992). The teachers use Socratic questioning techniques and implement a carefully crafted curriculum to improve student thinking skills relative to metacognition, inferences, and information synthesis (U.S. Department of Education 1988). The intent is to replace remedial laboratories with more intellectually challenging experiences.

The program has resulted in increased student abilities to articulate ideas and participate in advanced discussions while enhancing the students' language use and ability to learn in content areas. An optional Junior Great Books program complements the theoretical basis of the program and provides students with reinforcement and extended opportunities to participate in Socratic discussion sessions. Students with adequate higher-order thinking skills usually have improved self-concepts relative to learning and participating in the school environment and can respond to higher overall learning goals throughout the curriculum (U.S. Department of Education 1988).

Reading Recovery

Reading Recovery is an early intervention program designed to help six-year-olds learn to read. The program recognizes the link between an inability to read and the probability of school failure.

Based on a reading theory that emphasizes meaning, the program has three main components. The first is a diagnostic survey administered to each child and used to shape the program individually. The second component is a year-long intensive teacher training program in theories and practices of reading instruction and in Reading Recovery's specific procedures. Third is a tutoring session schedule in which a specially trained teacher provides children one-on-one help for thirty minutes daily for a period of up to twenty weeks. The teacher keeps detailed records and uses the observations of one session to help plan the next. Sessions are tailored to the student's learning style and include such activities as reading stories, reading a story that was read one time the previous day, working with sentences and parts of sentences, writing, and reading small paperback books of increasing difficulty chosen from a collection of over 2,000 titles (Allen 1991; Clay 1990).

Currently implemented in schools in more than two-thirds of the states, Reading Recovery's early results are encouraging. The U.S. Department of Education's National Diffusion Network (NDN) has given the program recognition and support for dissemination. Research on the lasting effects of the program, however, is inconclusive, and the program is expensive to institute and sustain.

Degrees of Reading Power Comprehension Development

One of the lesser known programs, but one with similar implications for libraries, Degrees of Reading Power is a program suitable for use in either elementary or secondary schools. Like Reading Recovery, the first component in the program is the administration of the Degrees of Reading Power test originally developed by the College Board. This test assesses how well a student comprehends prose encountered both inside and outside of school. Armed with this information, faculty are able to implement the second component of the program, which is to align instructional materials with the student's comprehension ability. Over time, materials slightly beyond current comprehension levels are introduced to help students extend their abilities. The work is rooted in social studies, science, and other specific disciplines, but the intention is to enhance comprehension in all areas of the curriculum. The third component is assistance to faculty in introducing comprehension development learning strategies into their courses. Still in early stages of implementation, schools in several locations have reported encouraging results (Levine and Levine 1996).

Implications of Programs Targeting At-Risk Elementary Students for School Library Media

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A Selection of Reforms Targeting Secondary School Students

Three consistent themes run through the leading secondary school reform proposals and restructuring efforts. First is the notion of curricular integration. Second is an emphasis on students taking increased responsibility for their own learning and social behavior. Third is a call for tighter linkages between schools and the communities in which they sit. The three reforms discussed here—the middle school concept, the Coalition of Essential Schools, and the school-to-work movement—collectively illustrate the themes and represent variations on them.

Proponents of the reforms argue that attempts at preparing students for life in the larger world outside of school, both before and after high school graduation, are too often rendered unrealistic and ineffective through the fragmentation of learning that marks traditional secondary schools. Academic discipline departmentalization, homogeneous grouping practices, the separation of scholarly required courses from humanizing elective classes, and the lack of connection—let alone continuity—between what a student learns in any of the six or seven classes he or she takes in a day impair the students' ability to understand, confront, and be successful in the real world—as both adolescents and adults.

While these reforms are discussed here as if they existed independent of other educational trends and reform proposals, they clearly do not exist in a vacuum, and that fact has implications for the future of school library media specialists. Despite the ways in which elementary, middle, and high schools differ, together they constitute the K–12 continuum and the fundamental framework of almost every student's educational experience. As such, the three are inextricably linked. A change in one most often produces a pressure—if not an irresistible force—for change in one or both of the other levels.

The development of more sophisticated, demanding, and individualized programs at the elementary level increases the importance of the library and library media specialist at the secondary level. Students who have developed research skills in elementary settings will expect continued access to print—rich collections and electronic connection to additional resources when they reach the integrated and self-directed atmospheres of the new model secondary schools. In districts where graduating elementary students move into traditional bureaucratically structured junior high schools, or graduates of progressive middle schools move into traditionally run senior high schools, there is likely to be increased demand for library resources as services. These students will bring to their new schools their connection to reading, the interdisciplinary perspectives and cooperative learning skills they have developed at the previous level, and their existing ability to access additional information electronically.

These attitudes and skills are essential if the secondary school reforms are to be successful. Where students have acquired these qualities in the years before entering the secondary school in question, both the students and the reform approach have a better chance of succeeding. Where these attitudes must be newly learned—and the more teacher-dependent, disjointed knowledge acquisition, and less technologically sophisticated learning habits and patterns must be set aside or overcome—there is increased cost to student and school. In either case, there are implications for library services and school library media specialists.

Middle Schools: Targeting the Young Adolescent

Developed in the 1960s as both a new form of organization and a new approach to educating the young adolescent, the middle school concept challenges traditional practices of centralized decision making, teacher isolation and limited expertise, and grouping practices. The middle school is designed to be a bridge between younger childhood and later adolescence, a transition between the elementary environment and the high school. A 1989 study by the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development—Turning Points: Preparing Youth for the 21st Century—outlined an initial consensus of what researchers and practitioners saw as the critical elements of an effective middle school: The guiding premise was that youngsters from ages 11 or 12 to 14 are not just junior versions of high school students. They have social, psychological, physiological, and intellectual experiences and needs that make them unique from both elementary and high school students. Building on the Carnegie Council foundation, other studies of adolescent educational and social needs have broadened and deepened understanding of the young adolescent and fueled the evolution of typical middle school programs. These schools look and feel different from junior highs, commonly featuring interdisciplinary teaming, advisor/advisee programs, parental involvement programs, and a range of student activities (Alexander and McEwin 1989; Carnegie Council 1989; Cawelti 1988; Clark and Clark 1994). An overview reveals the significant differences between the traditional junior high school and the middle school (see table 1).

While rapidly expanding, the middle school concept has not yet forced out the practices associated with the older notion of the junior high school. Studies have continued to show that interdisciplinary teaching is far from universal and is not necessarily exploited to maximum benefit where it does exist (Clark and Clark 1990; Lounsbury and Clark 1990). The core curriculum often is constrained by state mandates (Cawelti 1988). Middle schools are on the rise, but full implementation of the concept is not yet the dominant feature of middle-level education.

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Coalition of Essential Schools Targeting High School Students

Theodore Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools is a high school reorganization and renewal plan with a heavy emphasis on local building control (Sizer 1984; Sizer 1992). Coalition schools subscribe to the philosophy and nine operating principles that translate the Coalition concept into a school program. An entire school may be committed to the Coalition, or the structure may be created in a school-within-a-school arrangement; but where the school-within-a-school approach is applied, adherence to the principles marks its structure and operation as different from that of the surrounding institution.

The Coalition of Essential Schools philosophy embraces four beliefs: (1) a school should represent its community and the convictions of its staff; (2) there is no one best form for a school-schools of different size, shape, and structure can commit to a common set of guiding principles and each still look very different in practice; (3) all citizens in a democracy must be able to thoughtfully function in society and in the work force; and (4) teachers should be intellectual coaches, as defined by Mortimer Adler (1982) in his Paideia Proposal.

Sizer's (1992, 207–209) nine operational guidelines are as follows:

School-to-Work Transition Targeting High School Students

Recent emphasis by the business sector on preparing the future work force for a globally competitive marketplace has resulted in a new focus on career education in school reform efforts. Sometimes referred to as a "school-to-work" initiative, emphasis is placed on the student as a future worker. This has encouraged schools to consider both the skills and the personality attributes that eventually will be needed to establish students in a productive work environment. This includes team building, cooperative skills, and the higher order thinking skills that are associated with the work of our increasingly technological society (Uchida, Cetron, and McKenzie 1996).

Some of the impetus for this reform comes from business pressures resulting from economic globalization. Local corporate concerns and unemployed youth have encouraged urban educators to alter perspectives on education's relevance to the business world, and in 1991 the Department of Labor published the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) Report. The SCANS Report identified five areas of competency—technology, resource use, systems understanding, interpersonal skills, and information use—as fundamental for high school graduates.

School-to-work is not a new version of vocational education aimed at a specific segment of the school population. There is a growing perception that all students can benefit from a curriculum with a focus on future careers. The program has two distinct, but related, goals: improved educational achievement and advancement, and improved employment and career prospects (Goldberger and Kazis 1996). The school-to-work movement calls for the integration of career education with academics and the provision of activity-based instruction and lessons incorporating higher-order thinking. Successfully delivered, this curriculum and teaching practice reform benefits both college-bound students and those with vocational aspirations (Ramsey 1995).

Significant support for the concept is based in the federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act, signed by President Clinton in May 1994. Every school-to-work program contains three core elements: school-based learning (classroom instruction based on high academic and occupational skill standards), work-based learning (work experience, structured training, and mentoring), and connecting activities (courses that integrate classroom and on-the-job instruction, match students with employers, train mentors, and develop links between schooling and work environments).

Some of the forms school-to-work programs have taken include the following:

Like most other reforms, school-to-work programs are not without their critics. Some view work-based learning as a subtle form of tracking. They are concerned that the program narrows students' choices, depriving them of their chances to take college preparatory courses, fine arts courses, or any other courses that do not relate to their chosen vocational area (Kantor 1993). Other research has suggested that many teachers may be more concerned with how school-to-work curricula will affect their own programs and standing (Alexander et al. 2000; Hunter and Depew 1995; Inger 1993; Redmann 1993; Selvin 1990).

Implications of Reforms Targeting Secondary School Students for School Library Media

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Cluster 3: A Scattered Collection of Reforms Sharing the Goal of Improving Student Achievement

This cluster of ideas for school reform is more mixed in nature than the previous two. In fact, it is almost kaleidoscopic—an eclectic selection of approaches, most of which are well known and have been implemented to some degree in hundreds of schools, but that do not necessarily have a great deal in common.

In some respects, the ideas and approaches described here actually are more improvement ideas than reform measures. They are what organizational researchers refer to as "first-order changes," changes representing ways to do better what is already done within existing systems—as opposed to "second-order changes," which fundamentally alter an organization's goals and operation (Cuban 1989; Evans 1996). Nonetheless, they often are regarded as reforms because of the element of change they entail. Representative examples include a selection of curriculum reform ideas, distance learning, block scheduling, non-graded classrooms, and "authentic" assessment approaches.

Curriculum Reform Ideas

At the heart of schooling, curriculum, both in a general sense and in relation to specific disciplines, is inextricably bound up with library media services. This collection of examples illustrates current notions of reforms in curriculum in general—multiple intelligences theory, mastery learning, and outcome-based education—and in specific disciplines—mathematics, science, social science, language arts, and multicultural studies.

Multiple Intelligences

One approach to curriculum revision is to frame it within a theory of intelligences. Articulated by Gardner (1993), multiple intelligences theory is based on recognition of individual differences that affect the way people learn and process information. Multiple intelligences theory emphasizes the appreciation of these differences in order to present school knowledge in a variety of formats that address all forms of intelligence in a more personalized approach to education. The theory hypothesizes that people "are capable of developing at least seven different "intelligences":

• Linguistic-sensitivity to language, meanings, and the relationships among words.
• Logical-mathematical intelligence constitutes abstract thought, precision, counting, organization, logical structure.
• Musical-the sensitivity to pitch, rhythm, timbre, the emotional power and complex organization of music.
• Spatial-keen observation, visual thinking, mental images, metaphor, a sense of the whole.
• Bodily/kinesthetic-control of one's body and of objects, timing, trained responses that function like reflexes.
• Interpersonal-sensitivity to others, ability to read the intentions and desires of others and potentially to influence them.
• Intrapersonal-self-knowledge, sensitivity to one's own values, purpose, feelings, a developed sense of self" (Uchida, Cetron, and McKenzie 1996).

Gardner (1995, 208) summarizes the strengths and implications of the multiple intelligences approach by characterizing implementing schools as those that take individual differences seriously, share knowledge about differences with children and parents, enable children to gradually assume responsibility for their own learning, and present materials worth knowing "in ways that afford each child the maximum opportunity to master those materials and show others (and themselves) what they have learned and understood."

Mastery Learning and Outcome-Based Instruction

These approaches emphasize the mastery of specific learning skills, in whole or small group instruction, with variable times afforded for students to demonstrate mastery. The focus is on allowing adequate time for students to master sequential objectives followed by assessment of mastery for each objective. This reverses the more traditional approach of providing a fixed time for all students to learn objectives and progressing to other objectives before some students can provide individual demonstrations of mastery (Levine and Levine 1996).

Mastery Learning. The mastery learning approach has grown out of work by Benjamin Bloom (1976) in which he argues that 95 % of students can learn what schools have to teach if the methods used to teach them are appropriate and they are given the time they need to master the work.

The most significant gains in achievement from implementation of mastery learning occur when mastery learning is combined with four other elements: (1) sufficient student background knowledge of the subject, (2) appropriate feedback to students, (3) an active learning environment, and (4) cooperation from parents to provide an enhanced home environment for learning. To maximize the teacher delivery of instruction in mastery learning, attention needs to be paid to maintaining small class sizes, significant planning time and staff development efforts, and provisions for corrective instruction with students who have more problems mastering objectives.

Outcome-Based Education. Outcome-based education is the successor to mastery learning. Its major principles are (1) clear identification of what a student is to learn, (2) measurement of progress is based on demonstrated achievement, (3) accommodation of each learner's needs through multiple instructional strategies and techniques, (4) provision of sufficient time and assistance for each student to realize his or her own potential, and (5) curriculum construction that consists of identifying the desired behavior at the outset and then designing activities that will lead the student to competency in that behavior (Baron and Boschee 1996; Brandt 1992/93). The approach rejects traditional measures of education, such as course credits and time spent in class in favor of demonstrations, exhibitions, and other performance measures.

As originally adopted in state and school district curricula across the nation, outcome-based education contained a substantial proportion of objectives relating to values, attitudes, opinions, and relationships. This occurred at a time, however, when the country is increasingly concerned with basic skills. After a firestorm reaction in the last few years, outcome-based education has moved to the background in educational reform discussions, at least in name. Many of the concepts remain in educational conversation, however, and have been incorporated to varying degrees in one kind of reform program or another.

Curricular Reforms in Specific Disciplines: Mathematics, Science, Language Arts, and Social Science

Reforms in most specific disciplines have not really been advanced as curricula. Each issuing body has promoted them as standards only and stated that adherence to them is voluntary. In practice, however, standards outline a framework, and the explanatory text that accompanies the statement of each standard—especially in those frameworks that offer "content standards" as well as performance standards—indicates something stronger than just a suggestion. These reform proposals both have been praised and criticized because they do not necessarily tell teachers exactly what to do and when. If implemented, however, they individually and collectively carry implications for library media services and the instructional role of the library media specialist.

Mathematics Curriculum Reform. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Commission on Standards for School Mathematics issued the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics in 1989. The Council set five goals for students:

1. Value mathematics—have experiences that illuminate the historical, cultural, and scientific evolution of math; understand and appreciate the role and impact of mathematics in society and in the disciplines it serves;
2. Reason mathematically—skill in making conjectures, gathering evidence, and building arguments to support theory and engaging in sound reasoning is as important as finding correct answers;
3. Communicate mathematically—to express mathematical ideas in appropriate terms and symbols; solve problems that involve students in reading, writing, and talking the language of math;
4. Be confident of their mathematical abilities; and
5. Become mathematical problem solvers—apply the power and utility of mathematics to real-world challenges, something essential to productive citizenship.

In practice, these standards call for a hands-on approach to math instruction that involves using a context that is of interest to the student, presenting math concepts through concrete active assignments, representing mathematical relationships in multiple ways, and encouraging students to make and reflect upon the connections of mathematics to real life (Brutlag and Maples 1992). A feature in this approach to math is the increased linkage to reading and writing. Advocates promote reading far beyond the explanations given in typical math textbooks, arguing that students also should read issues in history and philosophy, accounts of strategies used in the solutions of mathematical problems in history, biographies, and anecdotes that provide insights into the sources of mathematical discoveries (Siegel and Borasia 1992). Another key in meeting these standards involves the use of technology. Realistic mathematical instruction today involves applications of various kinds of software and the use of an assortment of calculators (Connell 2000; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 2001; Walker and Azumi 1985).

Science Curriculum Reform. The National Science Education Standards (NSES) aim at producing a scientifically literate society (National Research Council 1996). The standards argue that while science must be hands-on for real learning, that alone is not enough. Quality science instruction must include minds-on experiences as well. Hands-on/minds-on science represents a constructivist approach to teaching and learning. In hands-on science, students perform scientific activities as they construct meaning and acquire understanding. In minds-on science, students focus on core concepts, developing thinking processes and questioning skills. In total, science is to be authentic; that is, students are presented with problem-solving activities tied to real-life questions and issues. The format is predominantly collaborative, there is significant engagement with informed sources, and students interpret with an eye to broader generalization of what they have learned.

The NSES include standards for teaching, for the development of science teachers, for assessment in science education, for science content, for science education programs, and for science education systems. The statements explaining the standards are complex and contain too many specifics to be summarized here. It is important, however, and sufficient for our discussion of library media implications, to note that the goals for school science underlying the standards include educating students who are able to

1. Experience the richness and excitement of understanding the natural world,
2. Use appropriate scientific processes and principles in making personal decisions,
3. Engage intelligently in public discourse about scientific and technological issues and concerns, and
4. Increase their economic productivity.

Although calling for the extensive use of technology in the accomplishment of these goals, the standards make a clear distinction between science and technology: the goal of science is to understand the natural world; the goal of technology is to meet human needs and to make modifications in the world. In these goals, and in the distinction between science and technology, rest the implications for library media services.

Language Arts Frameworks. The National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association released voluntary standards for learning English language arts in March 1996. The set of a dozen standards directly speaks to the significant involvement of library media services when it calls for students to read a range of print and nonprint texts, read literature from many periods and genres, apply a range of text interpretation and evaluation strategies, employ a range of strategies in spoken and written and visual language, conduct research on issues in problem-solving modes, use a variety of technological and informational resources, develop respect for diversity, and use language in a multiplicity of other ways for personal competence and enjoyment (International Reading Association 1996; National Council of Teachers of English 1996).

Social Science Frameworks. The Social Studies Framework advanced by the National Council for the Social Studies incorporates 10 themes: (1) culture; (2) time, continuity, and change; (3) people, places, and environments; (4) individual development and identity; (5) individuals, groups, and institutions; (6) power, authority, and governance; (7) production, distribution, and consumption; (8) science, technology, and society; (9) global connections; and (10) civic ideals and practices (National Council for the Social Studies 1994). The standards are designed specifically to be interrelated and are intended to draw from all the social science disciplines. The writers expect that student engagement with the social studies will be based in a framework of multiple resources, information-gathering strategies, interpretative and evaluative strategies, and persuasive presentations of well thought out positions.

Operationalization of the standards—which the National Council for the Social Studies (1993), like the other discipline framework authors, declines to call a curriculum—involves five undergirding principles for making social studies teaching and learning powerful:

1. Meaningful—concentrates on fewer but more important topics; meaningful learning activities.
2. Integrative—integrates knowledge, skills, beliefs, values, and attitudes; integrates effective use of technology. The application of technology is assumed. The Web has been described as a "curriculum warehouse for social studies teaching" (Boldt, Gustafson, and Johnson 1995).
3. Value-based—addresses the ethical dimension of topics and controversial issues; considers social policy decisions; engage in critical thinking; is sensitive to cultural similarities and differences.
4. Challenging—engages students in a thoughtful approach to inquiry.
5. Active—uses constructivist teaching and learning; features the teacher as guide; employs real-life applications using the skills and content of the field.

Each of these suggests an important role for library media and media specialists.

Multicultural Studies. America is transforming from a nation with minorities into a nation of minorities (Gainey 1993). Any curriculum that would be reflective of American society, and any that would incorporate real-life contexts into studies—such as is called for by the math, science, language arts, and social studies standards above—must deal with this reality. Multiculturalism is a systematic attempt by educators to recognize the range and values of diversity. Heavily centered in, but not exclusive to, the social sciences, multicultural education usually addresses issues of race, gender, ethnicity, class, age, national origin, sexual orientation, and religion (Skeele and Schall 1994). Multicultural education compares varieties of cultural practices and perceptions to those of Western society, recognizing and appreciating their individual value and collective diversity. A key purpose is the reduction of bias and the promotion of equity.

Multicultural curriculum can range from simplistic to exceedingly complex; from simple awareness to the nature of relationships, social interactions, justice, and national bonding. The materials employed in multicultural teaching can be a sensitive issue in schools and their communities.

Implications of Curricular Reforms for School Library Media

1. New frameworks in mathematics, science, social studies, and language arts all call for connections with the real world and the application of specific concepts in the context of the student's experience and future goals. This will pull students into the library more and raise the odds of collaboration with teachers to plan curricula and lessons.
   
   
2. The specific discipline curriculum reforms address technology in three ways: (a) in calling for students to use a wide range of information sources and technologies in their work; (b) as tools for learning specific subjects through activities ranging from something as simple as using software for drill and practice, to experiencing problem-solving activities, to analyzing data, to opportunities for creative expression; and (c) as subject matter for investigation, particularly in its impact on their individual and social lives. All of these have links to library resources and the librarian's expertise.
   
   This is a delicate area for school library media specialists. Technology advances so quickly that training is very soon outdated, not only for the library media specialist, but also for faculty members, too. It is a real possibility that commitment to staying current in technology will cannibalize much of what library media specialists do now.
   
   Yet there is also no visible escape from the problem. Two forces even suggest its further growth. First, as the quantity and quality of technology suitable for instruction